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Mark Shuttleworth Sends Out Apologies

11-10-2013, 01:20 PM

Phoronix: Mark Shuttleworth Sends Out Apologies

Mark Shuttleworth has apologized on the behalf of his legal team for one of his employees asserting their trademark rights over a web-site that was critical of Ubuntu's privacy within Unity. At the same time he also apologized over his earlier "Open Source Tea Party" comments for anti-Mir users...

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He is not apologizing about Canonicals' instance on defending their trademarks and copyrights, why should he?. Instead, he seems to be apologizing about using the toughest email template for their request .

The fact is , that website fixubuntu.com was indeed abusing from Canonicals trademarks and copyrights, there is no doubt about it. And i do not see how that website could be silenced in any way by that requests. Companies are entitled to defend their copyrights and trademarks from misuses or abuses too.

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He is not apologizing about Canonicals' instance on defending their trademarks and copyrights, why should he?. Instead, he seems to be apologizing about using the toughest email template for their request .

The fact is , that website fixubuntu.com was indeed abusing from Canonicals trademarks and copyrights, there is no doubt about it. And i do not see how that website could be silenced in any way by that requests. Companies are entitled to defend their copyrights and trademarks from misuses or abuses too.

Nope, I'm afraid you're precisely dead wrong. The site was based in the U.S., and a large body of established trademark law makes it clear that you can use trademarks, including images, on non-commercial 'sucks'-type sites: it's protected by the First Amendment.

Mark talks around this quite carefully in his post, if you read it carefully:

"In this case Canonical has a trademark policy that enables community members to use the marks (good) and allows for satire and sucks sites even in jurisdictions where the local law does not (great!)"

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Notice that he only apologizes to the "non-technical" folks, which he repeats a few times.

Nope, he is apologizing to the ones with "non-technical criticisms", as those are the ones he directed the insult in the first time (although I know of only a single non-technical action or comment against Mir, which was Intel's reverting of the patch).

Sadly, the comments on his blog are closed. He deserves the recognition for finally apologizing for his insult.

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Nope, I'm afraid you're precisely dead wrong. The site was based in the U.S., and a large body of established trademark law makes it clear that you can use trademarks, including images, on non-commercial 'sucks'-type sites: it's protected by the First Amendment.

Mark talks around this quite carefully in his post, if you read it carefully:

"In this case Canonical has a trademark policy that enables community members to use the marks (good) and allows for satire and sucks sites even in jurisdictions where the local law does not (great!)"

Ubuntu is trademarked in the United States too, so it is protected . The owner of fixubuntu.com was appealing to the 'nominative fair use ' ,but sadly, his own website did not pass the application of his own argument. You have to take a look at the original website to realize that canonical was right. In reality , there are no "first amendment" issues

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Nope, he is apologizing to the ones with "non-technical criticisms", as those are the ones he directed the insult in the first time (although I know of only a single non-technical action or comment against Mir, which was Intel's reverting of the patch).

Sadly, the comments on his blog are closed. He deserves the recognition for finally apologizing for his insult.

Using the tea party as insult is offensive for those being insulted and the tea party itself. That's like killing two birds with one stone .

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Using the tea party as insult is offensive for those being insulted and the tea party itself. That's like killing two birds with one stone.

Yes, but in the context of the insult to Mir critics is where who I quoted feels it is incomplete. He did apologize to tea party supporters for using it as an insult. Again, the same way I criticize him when he does wrong, I recognize he is apologizing for it.